Star Wars has always been a very important
part of the Disney parks, it was the first non-Disney Intellectual Property to have a
standout attraction in the Parks with the opening of Star Tours at Disneyland all the
way back in 1987, which proved to be an immense success with visitors. Since then, the park presence of this emblematic
franchise has expanded to all the corners of the world with attractions based on it
in Disneyland, Disney World, Disneyland Paris, Tokyo Disneyland and Hong Kong Disneyland. What you might not know is that long before
Galaxy’s Edge was being planned, complete Star Wars lands were being proposed for places
like Paris and then later for a park that didn’t get off the drawing board, Disneyland
Dubai. So, come along as we explore the Star Wars
Tomorrowlands, that never happened. Before we begin, if you enjoy my content and
this video make sure to leave a like and consider subscribing as I upload weekly videos on theme
parks from the past to the future! If you want to go the extra mile, consider
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BlueSky and in our DIScord community, where I’m most active, links are in the description. With that, let’s dig in… Tomorrowland has always been the most problematic
land in the Disney Parks, mostly because when you build a land around the future, that future
will soon arrive and make the land feel old. This is called the “Tomorrowland Problem”
and it has plagued Disneyland since its inception. While other lands feel timeless even after
60 plus years, such as Main Street USA that has remained pretty much the same after all
this time, Tomorrowland has been through various rigorous transformations over the years. One of the biggest transformations of any
Disney Park land was the New Tomorrowland Transformation of 1967 that saw the addition
of many new attractions and a complete overlay of the existing structures. Then, the next big change to the land came
in 1987 with the creation of the motion simulator ride that took guests to a galaxy far, far
away. Star Tours opened to huge fanfare and a 60-hour
party where Disneyland remained open for the entire time! Around this time, even if some years later,
Imagineering was hard at work drawing up plans for a major new development, EuroDisney. Michael Eisner was now focused on a Disney
Park in the European continent and with Star Wars now linked to Tomorrowland a way to fix
the problem of tomorrow always coming was one of the bigger concerns of the Imagineers
running the project. One of the proposals was to discard the future
theme as a whole and replace it with a completely IP themed land, the first of its kind. Tim Delaney was the creative director for
the “Tomorrowland” of EuroDisneyland and he drew this amazing concept art depicting
what he thought could work in the European park. In the back, we see Space Mountain, this time
themed as one of the most recognizable structures of the Star Wars Universe, the Death Star. Behind this new version of Space Mountain,
was a variation of what’s now known as Orbitron, where you would instead board what seems to
be speeder bikes similar to the ones from the 6th chapter, Star Wars: Return of the
Jedi. The parts closer to us are just as interesting,
on the left, we see a structure reminiscent of the very well-known Mos Eisley Cantina,
from Anakin’s home planet of Tatooine. While we don’t know for sure what would
be found inside, it’s likely that it would serve a similar purpose to that of Oga’s
Cantina in Galaxy’s Edge. The similarities to Galaxy’s Edge don’t
stop there, which becomes apparent as we draw our attention to the most famous hunk-of-junk
in the Galaxy, the Millennium Falcon. Again, there’s no way of knowing what this
would include, but it appears to either be a similar ride to that of Smugglers Run or
a walkthrough attraction where guests would discover and explore the well-known ship. Of course, this proposal was dismissed and
Discoveryland went ahead, alongside its steampunk theming. One thing that’s interesting about the concept,
is how would Space Mountain work? Well, several years later a patent was filed
with a simple rendering depicting a dualling coaster. This was filed before Lucasfilm was bought
by the House of Mouse and wasn’t created by Imagineering, but that doesn’t mean Disney
couldn’t work something out in the future. Jonathan Gordon, the patent’s creator, describes
it as a concept that “takes an armed conflict from a film or a story and allows riders to
live it. Through the use of multiple trains on multiple
tracks, giant themed arenas, animatronics, interactive laser gun systems and much, much
more, the Battle of the Death Star from Star Wars roars to life! This is the ultimate in themed rides and roller
coasters combined”. Being a dualling coaster, you’d obviously
have the rebel X-Wings on one side and the Imperial Tie-Fighters on the other, battling
throughout the duration of the ride. With this idea, since it’s a dualling coaster
after all, guests would be able to choose in some point in the queue if they want to
become a part of the Empire or the Rebels, which could be a great storytelling device
as you explore and queue on either the Death Star or in a Rebel Fleet ship! One other really cool part of this concept
would be the interactivity of the ride vehicles themselves that would be able to “shoot
lasers”. The coaster would also be in a highly themed
environment, the idea from the patent creator was the Death Star trenches from the original
movie. Now, before we get even more excited over
it, this is just a patent and doesn’t actually show a cancelled or even proposed ride by
Disney, but it still is an amazing way to see different possibilities for a future Star
Wars themed coaster. I’ll leave a link below to the US patent,
if you want to check it out for yourselves. Moving on… Some 15 years ago, Dubai was trying to reinvent
themselves and one of the ways this was to be achieved was through a major and fantastic
investment in themed entertainment. Meraas was developing Dubai Parks, a major
theme park world to rival in size the biggest players around the globe such as Disney World
or Universal Orlando. One of the many proposals was drawn up by
Favili Studio, which depicted nothing less than a full Disney theme park. The Disneyland Dubai proposal included 5 themed
lands and a similar, yet very different, layout to that of a Disney castle park such as Disneyland
or the Magic Kingdom. At the entrance, guests would be welcomed
by the train station, where you could board the train which circles the park. Similarly to Shanghai Disneyland, Main Street
USA is nowhere to be found, here, it seems you’d go directly into a Fantasyland style
village. The castle, a very important part of a Disney
Castle Park, would be a mixture of Paris’ and the Magic Kingdom’s, but here you would
be able to sleep in it as it would also act as a high-end hotel! To the right side of the castle hotel, we
find an Adventureland style area with the emblematic Jungle Cruise. To the left, there’s what seems to be Cars
land, the acclaimed Disney California Adventure land. Because of the very harsh and hot weather
of Dubai, a big portion of the park would be indoors, hence the very large, covered
areas. Inside one of them, to the left of Main Street,
would be what appears to be a Pixar themed land, which can be confirmed by the Pixar
lamp and ball. Now, the thing we came all this way to Dubai
for, the Star Wars Tomorrowland. Learning from the mistakes of the older versions
of this land around the globe, this version goes all in with the Star Wars IP. You are welcomed into the land by a huge Orbitron
style attraction with X-Wings flying above you as they go around the Death Star. As you walk deeper into the land, it’s possible
to recognize that it depicts the planet of Coruscant with iconic locations such as the
Jedi Temple or the Senate Building. Other recognizable elements include the Millennium
Falco and a train station in the middle of the land. Unfortunately, not a lot is known about what
type of rides this park would have, but it’s obvious that there would be many shops, restaurants
and attractions to explore here. Dubai Parks didn’t get a Disneyland and
many other theme park developments in the region failed completely, including Dubailand
which would be home to a Universal Studios theme park. While these attractions, lands and ideas haven’t
come to fruition, it’s obvious they played an important role in the development of Galaxy’s
Edge, one of the crown jewels of Walt Disney Imagineering. The future holds a lot of spectacular things,
and these ideas might be revisited when drawing up some new and exciting additions, so who
knows, some day we might be able to go on a dogfight aboard an X-Wing in a galaxy far,
far away… Which of these cancelled proposals would you
like to see become reality? Let me know down below! And now, as always, thank you for watching
and That’s a Wrap!
